Who’s it for: Administrators
Platform: (Web app) Sense HR
Available on: All plans
Before you begin
Make sure you:
• Have administrator permissions
• Know the contracted weekly hours for the configuration you want to create
• Know the working pattern for the configuration
• Know whether employees assigned to these hours will clock in/out
• Understand the Week start day that should be used
💡 Tip: Working hours configurations can be used for any role — including flexible roles, contractors, and zero-hours employees.
⚠️ Warning (known issue):
There is a known issue where switching between Daily Times and Daily Hours after entering schedule values causes the entered times to be cleared and the Contracted Hours to reset to zero.
This affects both schedule creation and schedule editing.
A fix is currently in progress. In the meantime, once you begin entering values in either Daily Times or Daily Hours, do not switch to the other view.
Overview
The Working hours area is where you create multiple reusable working-hours configurations each of which can be assigned to multiple employees. Each setup defines the contracted weekly hours for a role and, where needed, a repeatable daily or weekly schedule.
These working hours standardise how time, planners, calendars and entitlements behave across your organisation. Once created, a working hours setup can be applied to any number of employees — during onboarding or whenever their hours change — ensuring consistent handling of:
• Contracted hours
• Holiday entitlement
• Public holiday behaviour
• Working / Non-working status
• Event booking rules and booking durations
• Multi-week repeating schedules
You can create working hours configurations with a working pattern (for roles with a predictable weekly structure) or without a working pattern (for roles with no predictable schedule, such as contractors or zero-hours roles).
Navigation path
Sense HR > Settings > Calendar & Planner > Working Hours
Create a new 'Working hours' configuration
1. Go to Working hours
From the Sense HR Dashboard, open Settings in the main navigation bar.
Select Calendar & Planner.
Select Working hours from the left-hand menu.
Click Add.
2. Enter the basic details
Enter a relevant Name for the working hours configuration (e.g. Mon – Fri (40 hours)).
(optional) Add a Description.
You can either:
Enter the Contracted hours manually if the role has no predictable working schedule (e.g., contractors, zero-hours roles), or
Switch on Add daily schedule if the role has a repeatable weekly/daily structure. Using this option will automatically calculate the contracted hours.
💡 Tip: When to leave the schedule toggle OFF
Leave this off for roles where the person controls their own schedule or there is no repeatable structure.
Just enter the minimum contracted hours — this keeps entitlement and planner behaviour consistent without forcing a schedule / pattern.
If you turned the pattern ON, continue to Step 3.
If not, skip to Step 8 to save your working hours.
3. Set the Week start day (Daily schedule toggled ON)
If you enabled Add daily schedule, a Week start day dropdown appears above the Work pattern area.
Select the Week start day (e.g., Monday, Sunday, or another day depending on the role or region).
💡 Choosing the right Week Start Day
Use the day your organisation considers the beginning of the work week for the working schedule (pattern).
Examples:
• Monday – standard office schedules
• Sunday – common in retail
• Other days – sometimes used in rotating or specialist shift patterns such as continental shifts or Panama rotations, depending on the specific crew rotation.
The system keeps multi-week patterns aligned.
4. Add a daily schedule (Add daily schedule ON only)
Selecting Add beside Daily schedule opens the schedule editor.
You can enter the daily schedule using either Daily Hours or Daily Times.
• Daily Hours = manually enter hours per day
• Daily Times = enter start/end times (Daily Hours auto-calculated)
Both methods determine contracted hours, Working/Non-working days, and booking behaviour for Calendars and Planners.
⚠️ Important:
Due to a known issue, once you start entering values in Daily Hours or Daily Times, do not switch to the other view. Switching between views after entering values may clear the schedule and reset Contracted hours.
💡Tip: Hours and times must match the contracted week
Daily Hours or Daily Times define which days are working days and how long they are. Make sure the total weekly hours match the role’s contracted weekly hours — this ensures Working/Non-working status, entitlement and booking rules stay accurate.
5. Option A: Enter Daily Hours
Enter Daily Hours when employees do not clock in/out or when you simply need to define hours per day.
⚠️ Reminder: Once you start entering Daily Hours, do not switch to Daily Times.
1. On the Daily Hours tab, set for each day:
Duration (days)
Enter a value to represent how much of a working day is worked:
0 → non-working day
1 → full working day
0.5 → half-day (for example, 4 hours when a full day is 8)
Up to 2 decimal places → for longer or compressed days
Examples:
For a compressed schedule where the working day is 12 hours and a standard day is 8 hours, enter 1.5
For a half-day (4 hours out of an 8-hour day), enter 0.5Hours per day
Either enter using the time dropper tool, or manually enter using the format 08:00 for 8 hours.
Hours per day
Enter the total hours worked that day:
Use the time picker, or
Enter the value manually using the format 08:00 (for 8 hours)
💡 Tip: Use Repeat for selected days to save time
If multiple days share the same values, enter them on the first day shown in the pattern, then select the other days and click Repeat for selected days.
The tool copies values only from the first row in the list (whatever day that is, based on the pattern’s week start day). If one day has different values, fill in the repeated days first using Repeat for selected days, then update the remaining day separately.
🖊️ Note:
Ensure your daily totals match the role’s contracted weekly hours. These hours determine entitlement, booking durations and Working/Non-working status.
6. Option B: Enter Daily Times (clocking roles)
Enter Daily Times when employees clock in/out and have set start/finish times.
⚠️ Reminder: Once you start entering Daily Times, do not switch to Daily Hours.
1. Switch to Daily Times.
2. For each working day, set:
Duration (days)
Use the same guidance as for Daily Hours (see above) to represent full, partial, or extended working days.Start time
Use the time picker or enter manually (for example, 09:00).End time
Use the time picker or enter manually (for example, 17:00).Break duration
Enter the total break time in minutes (for example, 60 for a 1-hour break).
3. Choose how breaks are treated for this schedule
Subtract breaks from contracted hours
Toggle ON to deduct break time from total working hours, or OFF to include breaks.
🖊️ Note: The system calculates contracted hours from the times and break rules you enter.
💡 Tip:
You do not need to manually complete Daily Hours when using Daily Times
7. Add additional weeks (for rotating schedules)
If the working pattern spans multiple weeks:
1. Click + Add week, or
2. Use Duplicate week and adjust as needed.
🖊️ Note: The Week start day ensures multi-week patterns rotate correctly, even when assigned mid-week.
3. When you’ve added all the required Daily Hours or Daily Times and any additional weeks, select Back to return to the main configuration page.
💡 Tip: Your work is retained
All hours, times and week settings are preserved when you click Back, even if you change the Week start day afterwards.
8. Save the working hours
Review your settings.
Click Save.
💡 Tip: For more complex setups — especially those using a mix of Daily Times and Daily Hours — reopen the Working hours configuration after saving to confirm that the Contracted hours reflect the pattern you intended to create.
Manage existing 'Working hours' configurations (Edit, Copy, Delete)
Edit a working hours configuration
Go to Settings > Calendar & Planner > Working hours.
Select the working hours configuration you want to update.
The editor opens.
You can update the Name, Description, Contracted hours, and/or Working pattern details (click the Edit icon 📝 beside Working pattern)
🖊️ Note:
You can edit the Name and Description of Working hours configurations that are currently assigned to employees. You cannot edit their structure (e.g., changing contracted hours, daily hours, week layout, or Daily Times).
In this case, create a new working hours setup and assign it with an effective date.
Copy a working hours configuration
1. Go to Settings > Calendar & Planner > Working hours.
2. Locate the configuration you want to copy, and click the More actions menu (⋯) on that row
💡 Tip: You can use search or reorder any column alphabetically to find a Working hours configuration quickly.
3. Select Copy.
4. Give the new copy a unique and relevant Name and make any changes needed.
5. Select Save.
💡 Tip:
Copying is ideal when you need multiple variations of the same schedule (e.g., Full-time, Part-time, Compressed Week, Shift A / Shift B).
Delete a working hours configuration
1. Go to Settings > Calendar & Planner > Working hours.
2. Find the configuration you want to delete and select the More actions (⋯) menu.
3. Select Delete.
If no employees are assigned:
4. Confirm deletion — the configuration is removed immediately.
If employees are assigned:
A Reassign and delete confirmation window appears:
The message shows how many employees are currently using these working hours.
Select Reassign to continue.
5. Choose a different Working hours setup to move those employees to.
6. (Optional) Enter a Reason for change.
7. Select Save — the employees are reassigned and the old configuration is deleted automatically.
⚠️ Important:
Working hours can be deleted even when employees are assigned, but only after you reassign them to another setup. The system will not allow deletion without reassignment, preventing people from being left without working hours.
Notes on assigning Working hours configurations to employees
🔎 Understanding “No working pattern” during assignment
When assigning working hours to people (in People > [select profile] > Planner > Settings), you may see the option “No working pattern”.
This means the employee is assigned no working hours at all (not that the Use working pattern toggle was turned off when building the configuration).
Use “No working pattern” only for roles with:
No contracted weekly hours
No predictable working structure
No requirement for planner-driven status or entitlement
(e.g., true zero-hours, ad-hoc workers, certain contractors)
Whenever possible, assign the employee to one of the Working hours configurations that you created instead.
🏅 Best practice : Use your one of your Working hours configurations for everyone, if possible.
Working hours configurations (with or without a pattern) give the system the structure it needs to:
• Determine contracted hours
• Calculate holiday entitlement
• Apply public holiday rules
• Control booking durations
• Determine Working/Non-working status
• Prevent inappropriate event booking
If the role has any consistent weekly contracted hours, assign a Working hours configuration that reflect that weekly total, even if daily scheduling varies in practice.